Year 4 Spotlight - Spring Term

Summer Term here we come! In Year 4, we’re looking forward to an amazing last term together. We’ve had a very busy Spring Term. Our first unit in English was Spiderwick and we wrote lots of descriptions using expanded noun phrases, the rule of three, fronted adverbials and figurative language. We ended this unit by watching the film which we really enjoyed! We then moved on to writing explanation texts where we had to explain how ‘The Snoozatron’ from Wallace and Gromit worked. This was great fun! After that, we read ‘Cloud Busting’ which is a story made up of lots of different poetry. We enjoyed writing our own haikus and shape poetry. We are now reading ‘Friend or Foe’ which is all about WW2 and the main characters are called David and Tuckey who are evacuees. It is so interesting!

In Maths, we have been learning about fractions – equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions, improper fractions and mixed numbers. Now, we are learning how to tell the time, converting between hours and minutes, days and weeks and seconds into minutes. We have also been answering some really tricky word problems which involve working backwards.

In the first half term, in Art, we learnt about tints and shades, three dimensions, painting techniques, composition and still life. We have great fun with this as we created our own still life using equipment from the classroom. This half-term we are learning about how to build a pavilion, we first had to explore frame structures, then we designed a pavilion and a frame.

In Science, our little scientists have been learning about sound – how sounds are made, how sound travels, changing pitch, investigating sound over distance and investigating materials for ear defenders. The children really enjoyed this unit. This half term, we have been learning about States of Matter and we have been using our observational skills to investigate materials as they change states and explore different states of water. The children found it really interesting when the water vapour turned back into a liquid when it touched a cold surface.

Lastly, in Geography, we have been learning about the Amazon Rainforest. We have learnt about the different layers of a rainforest, the different animals we would find within these layers and why and if people live in the Amazon Rainforest. Please ask us about the similarities and differences between us and the Yanomami tribe.

Please take a look at the pictures attached to see all of our incredible Year 4 learning in action…